Ninjamestari

I just wish they could raise enough money for their next project without making any goal-promises. I think a game is better off if you either do a feature properly so that it is tied to the core experience in a fun and meaningful way, or if you can't achieve that, don't do it at all. These strap-on features like the stronghold in PoE1 don't really add to the game, they take away from it. Kinda like if you take a perfectly good meal, and add a couple half baked potatoes to it: the whole meal suffers.

Sure, but games aren't designed to satisfy mathematical equations, but to give satisfationary experience to consumers. Psychology is an important part of the experience, and, for example, not giving or giving very little XP for side content for many people (probably me too) will feel weak. The conflict we run into in this case is how to properly satisfy groups of consumers, who enjoy their games in different ways - those who want to experience the main story, and aren't as interested in sidestories/fleshin out the world, the completionists and completionists interested in well balanced challenge. For me, personally, the best solution would be to balance the game around completionist apprach. Have critical path be difficult and force you to do side content before moving forward with main stuff. However, as Obsidian wants their game to appeal to as wide audience as possible, they try to make it work for both groups - the ideal result is: 1) critical path is scaled for a straight through run, meaning someone who only wants main story is satisfied. 2) People enjoy growing overpowered throughout the game, so they do sidequest and roll through end game content. 3) People who want constant challange and do sidequest enable content scaling, which adjusts later stages of the game to their level. A "flawless" system, would be one which would fully satisfy all of those groups, but thats much more difficult to pull off, than adjusting numbers. For me, for example, its less about gameplay, but more about storytelling. If enemy who is hyped as a big challange is easily defeated it bothers me. Similarly it bothered me that after using content scaling for 3rd act of PoE the shades in Sun in Shadow were way more powerful than shades I fought before, because game had to rebalance for two expansions worth of experience. That kind of "flawless" system cannot even exist, so the whole concept is meaningless. What I'd consider a perfect system would most likely be a nightmare for many others. Human psychology is a wonky thing, so you have to decide which is more important: that the side quests rewards always 'feel' powerful, which is a vague and subjective definition at that, or have the rewards be balanced in a way that the final encounter is still challenging, which on the other hand can be simply calculated. In other words: one approach has applicable objective standards, the other does not. The thing that happens when you know the boss has been scaled to your level also has a psychological effect: you'll know that all those side quests and extra effort were completely worthless as the game just cheated and scaled the boss upwards. Also the mere possibility of level scaling affects the game so that you'll know that if you do not enable it, your playthrough will not be comparable to others who did, and your challenges kinda get invalidated, also a psychological phenomenon. I'm a big advocate of universal game design that is the same for everyone. **** the "more choice is better" people, I disagree with them so fundamentally that it isn't even funny. One difficulty, one set of rules and no individual interpretations. Making that decision also allows the designer to make a superior product, as they don't have to make the compromises, and will probably end up attracting a lot wider audience for doing their own thing.

Maybe not difficult but it is not a flawless solution. i was looking through old streams as I am pretty sure Josh address little xp/no xp for sidequests solution, and why it didn’t feel well. The problem is that beyond an act of completing sidequests players want to be rewarded as well - be it cool item or a lvl up. You remove that and players will feel like game doesn’t reward them enough for putting the effort in. What do you mean by 'flawless solution'? I mean, it's all just math, if you allow more levels to be gained from side quests, then the significance of one level needs to be less. Also, there's such a thing as too many side quests from the pacing perspective as well. If it was up to me, I'd adjust the level balance to match a party that has gone through all the side content, and if you've skipped all of it then hope you like ridiculous challenge or sucks to be you. To my experience, having non-scaling monsters and encounters is paramount, that is the only way I can compare two different characters that may get to that point at different levels.

Pretty much this. However, the number of levels isn't so much the issue as the actual power growth. You can have a lot of levels without getting into trouble if the power increase between levels is small enough. Hah, J-RPGS definitely are different, for example they are *worse* ^^

A wise decision.

I am not sure I follow. I rather depends how much side content you have - especially when you can't gain too much XP by farming enemies the quest XP and exploration become biggest XP boosts. Which would mean either have way more critical path vs optional quests, or diminish rewarded XP you get by doing sidequests. Probably the fact that "endgame content" (high lvl bounties, legendary enemies) are the most tricky part of the game you will be completeting just before finale makes the big finish feel a bit underwhelming. Could we just make the most challenging content THE finale? Its not like many people get to the end anyway... The amount of side content is irrelevant, the amount of XP you get from said side content is what matters, and it's incredibly easy to control that. Simply list all the side quests and sum their XP to get how much they're worth, and adjust accordingly. Not difficult. It's actually so simple that it is incredibly easy to automate the whole damn process, but unless there are hundreds of quests, there's really no point as the work load for manual adjustment is miniscule. It is easy to control the level range the player will end up with incredible precision; don't forget that these games are made and run on a computing device. The point is, every single XP source can easily be listed and calculated with the push of a button if the scripting and the tools are not completely worthless.

If the devs lack the determination to see their own vision through despite what a few fans say, then that is their failing. No one can 'manipulate' them into making bad decisions, every single decision is ultimately on Obsidian, not the fans. It's simply unprofessional to let fans dictate the course of the product; feedback can be useful, but ultimately the fans usually don't have the vision needed to understand the kinds of changes the game needs. I'm not worried, not much anyway. I'm not in the beta, but what I've heard pretty much indicates that Deadfire at least won't be worse than the first game, which at this point is good enough for me. The Stat change and the multiclassing change are pretty much what I wanted to see most, so unless the content somehow manages to sucks ass, I really don't see how this could be a failure. If the sales suck, then that is probably the result of the underwhelming experience of the first game that left many people disappointed. So many people haven't even completed the campaign.

This. That's the whole point of power progression, if you wan't scaled content, you might as well just remove leveling altogether, as the effects are the same. The power curve alone doesn't matter, what matters is the power curve relative to the monster power, and if that is a curve as well, then you might just as well flatten out the monster power and adjust the character power curve accordingly. This is just a mathematical fact: scaling monsters doesn't achieve anything. Sure, that’s why I don’t like scaling. Having kobots become just as powerful as you isn’t very fun as it negates your raise in power. At the same time I find it problematic if halfway through combat becomes a snooze fest, except one or two “epic” fights. You get to the finale to face your super-duper god infused enemy and than you kill him within seconds, not even using your full potential, because this legendary enemy was ready to be defeated 5 lvls ago, is weak as well. But that's just bad game/encounter design, you don't need scaling to avoid that situation. The steeper your power curve is, the more you run into this problem. If your power progression is relatively slow however, meaning that one level isn't enough to turn a difficult fight easy, then it should be relatively easy to simply balance the xp gain. Especially since PoE already has eliminated kill xp, controlling the amount of levels the player can get before point x is ridiculously easy.

If you think DA:O went too far, I wonder what you think of inquisition xD

Do you enjoy saying things that you know aren't true?

This. That's the whole point of power progression, if you wan't scaled content, you might as well just remove leveling altogether, as the effects are the same. The power curve alone doesn't matter, what matters is the power curve relative to the monster power, and if that is a curve as well, then you might just as well flatten out the monster power and adjust the character power curve accordingly. This is just a mathematical fact: scaling monsters doesn't achieve anything.

Doesn't mean you've got to start completely from scratch, searching for a new way of doing things doesn't mean you have to throw out the basics. If you don't build upon what already is, you're not really making any progress, you're just changing stuff aimlessly. I mean, the guys who made D&D had a vision, and that vision was a good one, PoE attributes on the other hand obviously lack one, as the stats are so disconnected from the fantasy setting as can be, they're nothing but combat modifiers that give zero identity to the characters. If you design without a clear vision, you're doomed to failure. There's no reason to stumble aimlessly in the dark when the D&D boys have already mapped and lit the way; obviously you don't have to do copy-paste, but you at least need to adopt the original philosophy of what the stats mean, and the mechanical meaning can be derived from there. In D&D your character's abilities affect every single aspect of the gameplay, in PoE they're merely the indication of whether you're a tank, a dps, a healer/buffer or a controller, that's pretty much everything there is to them. It's not as bad as the holy trinity in modern MMOS, but it's not much better. And still, no bad builds means there's absolutely no consequence to your stat choices, and you might as well let your cat do your build for you.

A foolish goal if there ever was one. No bad builds can only happen if your choices have next to no consequences, which is in essence the least interesting way to make an RPG. I think Josh among others have realized this mistake.

... and why would we made these arbitrary changes to perfectly functional system? Because they're not arbitrary, they'd address the very specific issue you were talking about in regards of having INT provide skillpoints, and balancing the stats which everyone here seems to complain about one way or another.

Yeah, the magic stuff was bad sentence structure on my part, but it is 'reality' in the context of the fantasy setting. Wizards do carry around spellbooks and their powers are indeed called spells, which they read from books, which they have learned through arduous study. This is all defined in the game lore, PoE doesn't have fart magic. What you don't understand is that D&D isn't "dump stat mentality", it's actually quite the opposite. The mechanics as they are represented in video games fail to represent that, but the concepts behind them definitely punish 'dump stats' heavily. I mean, I've tried to explain the distinction between the mathematical representation of the stats and the concept behind them in several posts now, it can't be that difficult to grasp. And the D&D automatically translates badly to video-games simply isn't true, not when talking about the concepts themselves. The fact that they have been previously translated very badly is another issue. I mean, no one here wants to see AD&D stats, but 3rd edition stats already work a lot better, especially if you take the more modern point-buy system that prevents you from lowering a stat below 8 and has progressive costs beyond 14. The fact is, I don't think that you actually understand what you want, you cannot have six different stats and not have some stats that are more important for certain types of characters than others, which if you're allowed to distribute points freely will lead to ridiculous min-maxing, that is inevitable. What you need to do is design the stats in a way that severely punish dump stats, and D&D concepts offer an incredibly easy and straightforward, and IMMERSIVE way to do that. What you're arguing is that "because D&D isn't god-like-perfection, we must choose this vastly inferior concept that offers none of the benefits of the D&D one." EDIT: I'm not saying that I want D&D stats, what I'm saying is that through their connection to reality, they posses properties that would solve every single problem the current system has.

Just because you dismiss your opponents' arguments as "vague non-argument" doesn't mean that's all there is. It just means that's all your acknowledge, while repeatedly asserting things you believe to be true. The only one I see here with a personal, ego-driven stake in the argument is you. You've propped D&D attributes up on a pedestal and aggressively attack any departure from them, while praising them for virtues they don't have and have never had. What you just did there was an example of a vague non-argument. No specific points, no reasoning, absolutely nothing of substance. Just empty platitudes. I've provided the logic and the reasoning you need to understand *why* D&D is the gold standard, and all you've done in return is give me this bull****. Let me be specific so you understand this situation: your 'arguments' aren't non-arguments because I dismiss them, I dismiss your arguments because they *are* indeed non-arguments. EDIT: in fact, *you* have dismissed every single argument I've made, and then you have the gall to accuse me of dismissing yours. I mean what you're doing is simply appalling, you ought to be ashamed. Just because I refuse to kiss your ass after you lower yourself to speak with us mere mortals in your divine righteousness, doesn't mean I'm not right. About everything.

These changes don't have to exist in a vacuum, you can easily take the duration bonus from INT and move it to RES, take spell damage from RES and add it to Perception and call the new stat WITS. You can't fix the stat system with singular small tweaks, you need to redesign it, every single stat.

What balance issues? There was no balance to begin with because the basic concepts of the system are flawed! When you have three stats that essentially do the same thing, you know you've got a problem (Might is + damage, Dexterity is faster attacks and spells, which is essentially the same as +damage, perception increases accuracy, which is again, essentially +damage). This is why you want to tie the stats to real-life concepts instead of arbitrary abstract ones, reality gives you easy access to concepts for consequences if you lack certain stats or if certain stats are incredibly high. This is why the concepts of D&D stats work so well, and that isn't some subjective 'my point of view', that is objective logical reality that doesn't change, which is why I find it so hard to believe that intelligent and thinking people could honestly dismiss that with only vague non-arguments like "just another way to play the game". Each stat needs a unique purpose, and that cannot be found by twiddling around the same mechanical gaming-concepts, you need to create new ones, or just copy old ones that served this purpose extremely well and for some bizarre reasons got cut from the game. And all this has been explained, time and time and time again. So the only logical explanation, given the assumption that people here are intelligent, thinking individuals, is that their reasons aren't entirely honest and rational, but rather that they've got their egos somehow bound to the whole argument. Besides, that's the case most of the time in so called "rational arguments" anyway, it usually still boils down to bruised egos, so making that guess isn't that much of a stretch.

I kinda like those little flavor sounds. There's a better solution to this I guess, have the informative 'barks' be more pronounced, loud and shorter; the kind of communication that clearly stands out from the meaningless combat-banter. Part of the problem is that the party members practically start reciting long-winded poems when they're trying to communicate in the heat of battle, which is kinda stupid anyway and does zero for the immersion factor. Man, now I want a character that actually barks during combat xD

I completely agree with your assessment, butI think a better solution would be to just add +1 skill points per level for every point of intelligence above 10, and similarly -1 for every point below 10. Easy, intuitive, and it discourages people from dumping INT at the same time.

Why? I love it when people make claims about being in the majority when they can't possibly know that. Also what personal stake could we possibly have? Shares in the Great Might Company? We have a personal preference yes, as do those who prefer the new strength/resolve system. - The reasons the concept of Might is inferior have been explained so many times now by me and others, in this very thread no less, that I must assume you already know and simply pretend that the answer doesn't exist. - The people who want Might first did so simply because they wanted to be perceived as different and sophisticated, and now they have argued so long for it that they cannot change their 'side' even though they know that they are wrong. This stuff should be obvious to anyone who isn't a complete loon.

I really hope I can make PoE1 decisions in that intro, I have absolutely no interest in running through PoE1 again.

Ya, perhaps. I just wish there *was* a strategic layer to the game :D Anyway, I think having to face a tough encounter without the benefits of said unique item counts as interesting gameplay. The point is, the restrictions could *add* that layer of strategic gameplay, and not only would you have to decide what loot to take and leave, but also what kind of equipment you prepare your adventure with, you know, potions, scrolls etcetera. I admit that dropping ordinary stuff seems kinda pointless, but that's the beauty of having high strength characters; they can carry more loot and have to be less picky about the stuff they carry back home, which would again tie in with that layer of game-play, and if you choose a party without a high STR character, you'll have to adjust your decision making accordingly, just like if you lack an arcane spellcaster or a healer. It's true though that for any of this stuff to really have an impact, resting would need to be restricted more as well, and there couldn't be any out of combat passive regenerations by default. I always liked regeneration being something really special that you really would have to work for, as it is such a powerful ability in more strategic games where limited resources are an actual issue. And don't worry, the guy who hosts the party has had a rather rough few months at work, and he's been whining for quite a while on how he wants to get wasted at new years, I bet we're all passed out long before we run out of booze. Whether or not we can beat the game in that condition is another thing entirely

Failing is only powerful, if the decision was made knowing full well risks and rewards. The example I gave wasn’t exciting it was frustrating. Playing without walkthrough should be more exciting, not frustrating. I might be scarred for life by playing Rick Dangerous as a kid on Comodore 64. You want to have a bad time, because you didn’t know what’s ahead of you? Give this a go: http://www.arcadedivision.com/classicgame27/platform/rick-dangerous.html C'mon, in a game where you know you might get more companions or run into unexpected situations where that particular axe might be useful, all the while it has all the glow and polish of a soulbound item, you know full well that he item *might* come handy at some point in the game. You're making it sound like the player is a complete imbecile. EDIT: also, what the hell are you talking about, that Rick Dangerous is an awesome game! Now I know what we're going to play when celebrating new years eve drunk :D EDIT EDIT: 7840 on my fourth or so attempt, how on earth can this masterpiece scar anyone? xD

And you would rob the player of the chance to have such a powerful experience? The game must allow players to make bad decisions, otherwise there's no point to the decision making at all, and it is all just for show. Naturally, there should be something preventing them from disappearing if the player hasn't found them at all, but other than that, I don't think that the possibility of a player permanently losing something valuable is a bad thing, quite the opposite. It gives the game replayability, as you try to not screw up as badly as you did the first time around. It also forces the player to focus while playing, which immensely deepens the immersion and lets the player notice more details, and overall provides for a more vivid experience.